Michael Gove: I thank my hon. Friend for the work he did as Deputy Mayor of London, when he was responsible for policing and crime and made a significant contribution to reducing knife crime on our streets and in deploying the Metropolitan police more effectively. I think all of us would agree that prisons and probation cannot work effectively unless there is a close working relationship with the police service. However, I would caution against making a change at this point of the kind my hon. Friend suggests. It is a fascinating idea, and it has been put to me by others whom I respect, but we are just 12 months into the transforming rehabilitation programme initiated by my predecessor, and it is only appropriate that we acknowledge that that programme has already seen an increase in the number of frontline probation officers, again of more than 500. Yes, it has brought in commercial expertise, but it has also brought in the charitable and voluntary sector and, for the first time, there is a direct requirement to provide support for those prisoners who leave after serving sentences of 12 months or less.
	I think that was a humane and wise decision on the part of my predecessor, because we know that people who serve shorter sentences are more likely to reoffend. We can debate the factors that drive that, but what is undeniable is that if someone has served a shorter sentence—if they are part of that cohort more likely to reoffend—they deserve the support of probation just as much as, if not more than, other offenders.
	The situation that used to prevail, where these offenders would be given £46 and left to their own devices as they went through prison gate, was replaced by my predecessor and it is only appropriate that this House, whatever other criticisms it directs at this Government, acknowledges that that was a step forward for which he was responsible.

Andrew Selous: We have had an excellent debate, with 22 Members taking part. I want to start, as others have, by putting on record my thanks to the men and women of our probation and prison services. They are outstanding public servants. They are often not in the public eye and do not get the thanks and appreciation they deserve. Probation officers make difficult professional judgments every day, often to tight timescales for the courts and the parole service. Prison officers face unacceptable violence, which we do not tolerate and are determined to reduce.
	The Government are not in denial about the problems we face. We are not rehabilitating or reducing reoffending enough in order to keep the public safe. That is why our reforms are so vital, to protect the public by better rehabilitating offenders. That is why I am delighted that we have more support for prison reform from the top of Government than we have had for very many years. Reoffending has been too high for too long. That is why we have brought together the best of the voluntary, charitable and private sectors to join our excellent public service probation workers in bringing in our probation reforms. That has meant that we have extended probation supervision to some 40,000 short-sentence offenders who did not get it before. We have also introduced a through-the-gate service, joining up probation from prison into the community.
	We have created the National Probation Service, and I should tell Members that 19 of the 22 CRCs are being run with a staff mutual or a voluntary, charitable or social enterprise sector body alongside their owners. We monitor their performance very carefully indeed, and the October 2015 performance figures showed that we are advancing in performance in almost all areas. South Yorkshire CRC has developed an action plan to deal with the issues it faces, but I can tell the House that no CRC is in a formal remedial plan. I can also tell the House that there are 560 more probation officers than there were 12 months ago. That is the largest intake of newly qualified probation officers for some considerable period.
	In the Prison Service, we saw a net increase of 540 prison officers in the year to 30 September last year. We have appointed some 2,340 extra prison officers. As of last week, we have increased prison officer training to 10 weeks, to make sure they are able to deal with many of the serious issues that colleagues from around the House have mentioned. We are going to carry on recruiting at that rate to make sure that we run safe prisons.
	Many Members raised the very serious issue of self-inflicted deaths. I want to reassure the House that the Justice Secretary and I continue to take it very seriously indeed. We have acted on the vast majority of the recommendations of the prisons and probation ombudsman and will continue to do so. We have put more money into providing safer custody in prisons and at a regional level. We have also revised and improved our case management system for at-risk prisoners, which is being implemented.
	We are reviewing early days care—sadly, prisoners often take their life in the first few days of their sentence. I draw the House’s attention to our extensive use of the Samaritans-trained prisoner volunteer listener scheme. That is extremely worth while and very much appreciated by prison officers.
	I attend every single inter-ministerial group on deaths in custody and will continue to do so. We will carry on learning lessons around the system.